


Blip in the System

by SailorChibi



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Age Play, Baby!Tony, Cribs, Crying, Cuddling, Diapers, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Infantilism, Infinity Stones, Jarvis (Iron Man movies) Lives, No Endgame Spoilers, Non-Sexual Age Play, Pacifiers, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Protective Jarvis (Iron Man movies), Protective Stephen Strange, Protective Vision (Marvel), Tony Stark Gets a Hug, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Daddy Issues, Tony Stark Has Self-Esteem Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, World Change, bottles, cause this is my fic and i can have JARVIS and vision if I want to, daddy!stephen, forced age play, he forgot to omit age play, ignores endgame, non-sexual infantilism, so now the world just thinks age play is normal, spoiler it's not normal, thanos forced tony into age play, thumb sucking, tony doesn't think he deserves love, vision is not in love with wanda, when tony changed the world back
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-09-18 11:16:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16993989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SailorChibi/pseuds/SailorChibi
Summary: Thanos kidnapped Tony following the decimation and forced him into a life of age play. An unknown amount of time later, Tony manages to seize the Gauntlet and change the world back to normal - or so he thinks. It turns out that after enough time, some things become so ingrained you just don't think about them. And now Tony is stuck in a world where there are Littles and Caregivers, and he just so happens to be classified as the former.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was one of two commissions I was asked for where Thanos kidnaps Tony and forces him into age play, and, when Tony fixes things, he inadvertently forgets about the age play and it has an Effect on the world. Here's version one.

When Tony had been captured by the Ten Rings in Afghanistan, time had never blurred together. He'd been extremely aware of every passing day, every passing hour, every passing _minute_. Maybe it was because he'd been actively working towards an escape. Or maybe it was because he'd had Yinsen there with him. Turned out that being able to talk to someone aside from your captor was a luxury. He hadn't known that until he got on a spaceship, traveled to a planet called Titan, watched Thanos literally decimate half of the fucking universe, and then got kidnapped.

Which led him to this moment. Tony couldn't have said how long he'd been Thanos's prisoner, not for all the money in the world. He thought that it had probably been a long time, long enough that he was beginning to forget what some of the Avengers looked like. He couldn't remember Barton's face at all. He knew that Romanov had red hair, but only because that was the same color hair as Pepper. He remembered Captain America's shield, but not what color eyes Captain America had. He remembered the Hulk, but not what Bruce looked like when he was really into a science experiment.

Long enough that, by all rights, he should have been dead. And would have been, very gladly, had it not been for Thanos and the power of the Infinity Stones. Because Thanos hadn't been content with just kidnapping him, no. He'd decided to make Tony into a perpetual little boy that could never run away from him the way that Gamora had. Diapers, onesies, pacifiers and bottles had quickly become a part of Tony Stark's day to day life. He was positive that when Thanos took away Tony's ability to walk, he'd also lengthened Tony's life and stopped his aging process. 

It was a move that Tony had vowed Thanos would live to regret. Even if it meant pretending that he'd given in; even if it meant forgetting about all the things he'd once held dear in his heart; even if it meant going along with this weird age play thing to the point where Tony started to forget what life had been like when he wasn't sleeping in a crib or relieving himself in a diaper. Those were all things he was willing to sacrifice if it meant that Thanos would show him an ounce of trust. He didn't need much to take advantage of the situation. All he needed was a single chance.

Today, he'd gotten it.

He stared up at the Gauntlet, which sat beside Thanos's throne. To the best of Tony's knowledge, Thanos didn't actually use his throne that much. It seemed to function more as a symbol of Thanos's win than anything. Just as well, Tony thought wryly, because otherwise he wasn't sure how he would've gotten in here without Thanos knowing. He scooted a little closer to the throne and put his hand on the cold, marble seat. Very slowly, he leaned his weight on the throne and began try to lever his feet under him. His muscles trembled violently in protest; Thanos had punished him in the beginning whenever he walked, before finally modifying Tony's muscles so that he _couldn't_ walk. It had been ages since he'd done anything but crawl.

But it had taken this long to get this chance, and Tony would be damned if he gave up. His breathing quickened as he straightened inch by inch, until he could sink down onto the throne. It was cold and hard beneath his butt, but Tony didn't care. It was very likely that what he was about to do would kill him, yet that would still be better than continuing on in this empty existence. He couldn't stand another day of Thanos cooing at him. He just wanted to go back to a world where he knew where he stood. He could deal with anything so long as he never had to wake up and find Thanos standing over him again.

He didn't know exactly how the Stones worked. But he had a pretty good idea from watching Thanos carelessly and freely use the Gauntlet whenever he wanted. He thrust a hand inside the Gauntlet - and fuck, his hand was so _tiny_ compared to Thanos's hand - and closed his eyes. He thought hard about Pepper and Rhodey, and being able to walk, and not having to worry about Thanos. He thought about going flying in the Iron Man armor, and messing around with Peter after school, and being able to talk to JARVIS whenever he wanted.

Fire erupted around his hand. He might have screamed; the fire spread so quickly that he couldn't tell. The world blipped out.

\--

"Sir, it's time to wake up. Ms. Potts is going to be here in twenty-seven minutes and she will be most displeased to find you still in bed."

The Vision. That was Vision's voice. Tony's eyes fluttered. Why was Vision in his bedroom? They'd been working hard on teaching the android the concept of personal space and boundaries. Vision was finally starting to figure out that phasing through someone's wall or the floor was a guaranteed way to give them a heart attack. Better yet, why was Vision calling him Sir? He'd always referred to Tony as 'Mr. Stark' or, as they grew slightly more comfortable with each other and at Tony's insistence, just 'Tony'. Sir was what JARVIS used to call him.

"Sir, I really must insist you get up. Your diaper is wet."

Wait. What?

Tony opened his eyes and found himself staring at the ceiling of his bedroom. It was such a shock to the system that, for a long moment, he just froze. Only the sound of wind blowing in through a window got him moving again; he turned his head slowly to take in the room around him. It was _his_ room, the way it had been before he and Pepper began sharing a bedroom, with the dark wooden furniture, pale blue walls, and amazing view of the New York skyline. Tony had passed out after drinking to the sight of that view so many times that he'd lost track. Only right now, it was partially obscured by bars.

"What the hell?" he gasped, sitting straight up. He was laying in a crib, which was in the exact place where his king-sized bed should've been. Tony's baffled gaze swept across the room again, but nothing he saw offered any kind of explanation as to why he was in a _crib_.

"Are you well, Sir?" JARVIS inquired, and Tony's heart leapt.

"JARVIS. That's you, isn't it?" Tony whispered. "You're back?"

"I never left," JARVIS said. Tony blinked slowly, but inwardly his mind was racing.

He’d thought to himself that he wanted everything back the way it was, with the only change being that Thanos didn’t exist – but had he used those words _exactly_? He couldn’t remember. He hadn’t taken the time to think carefully, not when he knew that Thanos could show up at any moment. He’d just… shoved his hand into the Gauntlet and _wanted_.

“Fuck me,” Tony said, softly but with intense feeling. He’d fucked up. There was no other explanation.

He reached for the bars on the crib, feeling along the smooth side until he encountered the lock. It fell with a single press of his finger, obviously designed for ease of use. Tony scooted to the edge and cautiously put his feet down on the floor. A rush of relief went through him when he stood and his legs bore his weight easily. He still braced himself with a hand on the edge of the crib out of habit as he took a cautious step.

“Where’s my phone?” he demanded, eyes sweeping the room.

“Right where you put it last night, Sir. On your rocking chair.”

His rocking chair? Tony shook his head and carefully made his way over, finding a Starkphone on the polished wood as promised. He scooped it up and sat, logging in to find that there was a mountain of email awaiting his attention. He ignored them and opened up his browser. His hands were shaking as he typed in a search for two words: age play. 

At the thousands of results, Tony inhaled sharply. His eyes danced over the phone’s screen in abject horror as the knowledge of what he’d done slowly sunk in. He’d fixed the world alright. There was no mention of the decimation. The Avengers existed, though Captain America and the others were still fugitives – their ‘civil war’ had still happened, then. But there was something else too. Something that had definitely not been there before.

The world, Wikipedia explained, was divided into three categories of people. Baseline, who were largely normal people. Caregivers, who were normal people but with an innate, unignorable need to care for the third group. And said third group, Littles. People who had a secondary headspace that they were in for all or much of the time, a headspace that was typically below the age of eighteen.

Tony dropped his phone. It was a testatement to Stark Industries that it didn’t shatter on the hardwood floor, but he wouldn’t have cared if it had. His breathing had quickened to the point where his lungs were starting to ache. Thanos had forced age play on Tony. And in turn, Tony had unintentionally forced it on _the whole word_. He’d _changed reality_. He’d made it so that people _didn’t even realize that Caregivers and Littles weren’t suppose to be a thing_.

“Sir?” JARVIS said, sounding concern. “Sir? Are you okay?”

He tried to say no, but the word caught in his throat and emerged as a striken whimper instead. He’d fucked up. He’d fucked up so bad. He knew exactly how it happened, too. He’d lived like this for so long that he hadn’t even thought to separate it from his thoughts of how things used to be. He hadn’t pictured himself with perfect bladder and bowel control. He hadn’t pictured himself in a bed instead of a crib. He hadn’t pictured himself functioning like he used to.

And what he’d unwittingly envisioned, the Stones had granted.

Tony pressed his shaking hands to his face and dugs his nails into his cheeks, hoping that the pain would be enough to wake up. He’d almost prefer to find Thanos standing over him, rather than have to acknowledge the sheer magnitude of the mistake he’d made. But of course, he didn’t wake up because he was already awake in a world of his own making.

How could he have done this? How had he wished JARVIS back into being, but forgotten about omitting age play? It just didn’t compute. And it wasn’t like he could fix things. The Infinity Stones would be scattered across the universe again. There was no Thanos to collect them or create a Gauntlet. The only Stones on Earth were the Mind Stone and Time Stone. 

That was it. Tony lifted his head. The Time Stone. If he could go back in time – could you do that? Could the Time Stone cross realities like that? He didn’t know, but it was worth a try. He needed to talk to Strange. The last time Tony had seen the man, Strange had been fading away. He didn’t know how long ago that had been. Years, probably. But he still remembered where Strange had been living: the New York Sanctum, a seemingly innocent building from the outside that housed far more than Tony could’ve guessed.

“JARVIS?” he croaked.

“Sir? Should I call Colonel Rhodes?”

“No.” Tony shook his head. He didn’t want to see anyone right now. He looked down at his phone, realizing that he had no way of knowing how Pepper or Rhodey were classified. God, what if he’d turned them into Littles? He didn’t think he could live with himself if that happened. 

He got up slowly, balancing himself with a hand to the wall, and said, “Tell Pep I’m sick, JARVIS. I need to go see someone and it’s urgent.”

“If I tell Ms. Potts you’re sick, Sir, she’ll insist on escorting you to the hospital herself.”

Tony paused, wrinkling his nose. “Why? Pepper’s not in charge of me.” A horrible thought occurred to him. “Wait, is she?!”

“No. You have no registered Caregiver,” JARVIS said slowly. 

“Okay. Okay, good. That’s good.” Tony ran his hands through his greasy hair. “Tell her – tell her whatever you can to make her go away for a while, okay?” He shuffled towards the bathroom. First things first: he was in desperate need of a shower.


	2. Chapter 2

Following his long, hot shower, Tony emerged from the bathroom in a cloud of steam and found his way to his closet. Or rather, _a_ closet. It was hard to wrap his mind around the fact that brightly colored, childish clothing was all his. He hastily shut the door, pulse quickening from panic, and had a bemused JARVIS direct him to the nearest closet that contained his adult clothing. The neatly pressed rows of dress pants, suit jackets, and button-down shirts were comforting, but not what he wanted. Finally, he found some old, worn sweatpants and hoodies tucked away in the dresser.

"Sir," JARVIS said, right before Tony was about to haul on the sweatpants. "Your diaper?"

A diaper. Right. How easy it was to forget that his time with Thanos wasn't just a horrible memory, and that he still lacked the bladder and bowel control that other adults took for granted. Tony gritted his teeth and went back into the nursery, finding several packages of diapers stored beneath what looked suspiciously like a changing table. He held the diaper against him and pulled it between his legs and then up around his waist. It was a bit hard to get the fasteners on properly - he'd never put his own diaper on before; Thanos had always taken care of that - but he managed.

Then he hauled on the sweatpants and slid the hoody on. They were both big on him, probably having belonged to Rhodey at some point or another, and the soft cloth felt good to hide behind. He put on a baseball cap and sunglasses and sneakers and grabbed his wallet, shuffling to the elevator. The elevator took him down to the parking lot, where he was able to slip out onto the street without anyone giving him a second look. That was exactly what he needed right now. He couldn't handle a bunch of people asking questions until he figured out if he could fix things.

As he walked towards Bleecker Street, he watched the people around him intently. It was jarring to see physical adults wearing childish clothing and diapers or pull-ups. There were people who must have been Caregivers easily carrying other adults who had to be Littles around. Tony wasn't sure how they were physically capable of that but resolved to research it. He saw Littles in high chairs through restaurant windows, Littles in a modified version of a car seat in the back of vehicles, Littles drinking from bottles or being hand-fed, he even walked past a playground with equipment sized for adults. 

And everyone was acting like it was so _normal_. He wasn't sure if that made everything better or worse.

He picked up the pace a bit, breaking into a light jog, and relished how good it felt to be able to walk and run again. If nothing else he had that back, and he was never going to take the ability to walk for granted again. If he did get the chance to go back in time and use the Gauntlet again, he would have to be very careful about what he wanted. He'd have to make sure he thought of everything this time. He wanted what he had now, except without the age play. There had to be a way to make that happen. Tony had to be able to fix this.

The New York Sanctum looked, from the outside, like just another building. Tony went up the steps and knocked on the door. There was no answer. He hesitated, then reached for the knob and tested it. His palm tingled in a way that wasn't painful, just noticeable, and he froze. But then the knob gave beneath his fingers and turned, letting him slowly push the door open. Tony followed, anxious to be inside rather than outside, and stepped in. There was no one in the hall to greet him, but he closed the door behind him regardless. He wasn't planning to leave without answers.

"Dr. Strange?" he called out. "It's me - err, Tony Stark. I need to speak with you."

He heard the footsteps long before Tony saw him. Dr. Stephen Strange came to the top of the steps, wearing jeans and a black shirt. That damnable cloak hung from his shoulders, rippling as though there was an invisible breeze making it move. Tony knew better. This time, he was going to keep his distance from that cloak. He shifted his gaze from the cloak to Strange's face as the sorcerer began to walk down the stairs, then lowered his eyes to the pendant that hung around Strange's chest. Knowing that the Time Stone was inside, Tony's fingers itched with the urge to grab it.

"Hello Stark," Strange said slowly. There was an edge of familiarity about the way he spoke Tony's name, and Tony looked at him sharply. He and Strange had met before, mostly because the wealthy and elite of New York all tended to pass through the same circles at one time or another. But since Stark Industries had never had much to do with the medical field, their conversations had always been brief. No, this was a familiarity borne from something entirely different.

"You remember," Tony breathed, shocked, and Strange stopped. They looked at each other for a long moment during which no one said anything, and then Strange closed his eyes and sighed. 

"Some of my memories are fuzzy at best. I know I don't remember everything. I have competing memories, including a whole life growing up in this world," Strange replied. "I wasn't sure why. The last thing I truly remember from what I assume is the old world, is fading away on Titan."

Tony suppressed a shiver. God, it had been years since he'd seriously thought about the Decimation with any detail. It had tormented him at first, but then the time with Thanos had given him new and increasingly horrifying details to focus on. But it was all coming back to him now that he was standing in front of someone who had been personally affected by it. In his mind's eye, he could see the desperation and fear in Strange's face as his body turned to dust in the wind. 

"Thanos kidnapped me. I don't know how long I was with him, but it was a very long time," Tony said at last, realizing that Strange was patiently waiting for an explanation. "He did... things. It took me... years, probably, to be able to get to the Gauntlet."

"You used the Gauntlet? You used all of the Infinity Stones?" Strange looked at once surprised and impressed. "I can't believe you're alive."

"I was desperate. I didn't know what else to do," Tony admitted. "But I... I fucked up."

Strange finally came the rest of the way down the stairs. "I suspected. The... changes, are those related to what Thanos did to you?"

Unable to meet Strange's eyes, Tony looked away. "Yes. I was stupid. I didn't - it got hard to remember how life used to be. So, when I shoved my hand in the Gauntlet, I didn't even think about specifying a world without... Well, like I said, I fucked up. I need a chance to fix it. That's where I thought the Time Stone could come in."

Strange was quiet for a moment, as though organizing his thoughts, before he responded. "I understand your thought process, but that's not going to work."

"What?" Tony stared at him.

"I'm sorry, Stark. You didn't just change time when you used the Gauntlet. You changed reality itself. I assume that you made it so that Thanos doesn't exist?" At Tony's reluctant nod, Strange continued. "If you were to use the Time Stone to take you back into the past, it would. But only in _this_ world. It can't take you back to the old world. You would need, at the very least, the Reality Stone for that, and you might even need the power of all six Stones working in harmony. Even if you devoted your whole life to searching for them, I'm not sure you would find them."

Tony's heart sank straight through the floor, and he honestly thought he might throw up. There was no way to fix this. He'd doomed the whole world and _he couldn't fix this_.

He must have gone pale, because Strange moved quickly to his side and gripped Tony's arm. "Come on. Sit down before you fall down," he ordered, gently turning Tony around and pushing him down onto the stairs. Tony went with it, but only because his legs had gone so weak that Strange had a point about falling. He sat down hard and bent double, squeezing his eyes shut so as not to stare at the black spots that were consuming his vision.

Strange sat down beside him, sighing. After a considerable pause, he murmured, "You saved the world."

Tony snorted. "Yeah, right. Some saving," he muttered sarcastically. "I've created a world where age play is a _thing_. An actual thing that is a documented medical anomaly and which everyone seems used to. I don't think most people would consider that to be saving."

"You said it yourself, everyone is used to it. The set of memories I have from this world come complete with all the knowledge I learned about Littles and Caregivers in medical school," said Strange. "No one but you and me knows any differently. And possibly the Vision, if he exists in this world."

"As far as I know he does," Tony said. He hadn't actually checked. Was that awful? He'd briefly looked at the footage about the Avengers' civil war, but he hadn't paid much attention to the circumstances surrounding it. JARVIS was alive, which could mean that Vision wasn't... but then again, that was one of the things Tony had specifically wished for when he was using the Gauntlet. 

"I haven't looked into the Avengers yet myself," Strange admitted. "I was still getting used to the fact that I'm alive, and that I've got two sets of memories to try and get used to."

"I didn't look either," Tony mumbled. His head was spinning. It felt like all his hopes had been deflated all at once. "But... why you two? Why do you remember?"

"Proximity to the Time Stone, I expect. It could also have something to do with the fact that I'm Sorcerer Supreme. You can never tell how magic is going to work on magic users. Sometimes there are difference effects. But that's just my guess. And frankly, if you were hoping that someone else would remember, I think it's unlikely," Strange said, not unkindly.

Tony scoffed at that. "God no. I don't want people know that I fucked everything up."

"You didn't fuck everything up," Strange said.

"I'm pretty sure most of the world would feel differently if they knew."

" _if_ they knew," Strange repeated. "They don't. They never will, thanks to you. And frankly, given the choice between age play and having half the galaxy vaporized, I know which I would choose. I'm pretty sure I know which option most, if not all, people would choose."

There was a ring of truth to Strange's words that Tony wasn't ready to acknowledge yet, so he just shook his head. "I should've been more careful."

"You were a prisoner, Tony, for months, if not years, at the hands of someone who literally killed millions upon millions of people. Someone who, based on what I know of him, I'm guessing treated you very cruelly. No one could blame you for not being able to logically think through all the minutiae in the span of time you had to put the Gauntlet on and make your wish. In my eyes, the important thing is that you managed to not only stop Thanos, but destroy him so that he would never threaten anyone again. That matters _far more_ than any mistakes you may have made in the process."

Tony swallowed, unsure of how to take Strange's passionate speech. He'd come here expecting scorn and flagellation. He wasn't sure what to do with compassion and understanding, and it was leaving him wrong-footed. He looked away from Strange's intense, blue-grey eyes and wiped his sweaty palms on his pants. This was it, then. This was the end. There was no going back. He had to figure out how he was going to move forward.

"I should go," he whispered. 

"You don't have to," Strange said.

"No, I - thanks. Thanks for everything you did, Strange." Tony kept his head down as he stood and walked quickly over to the door of the Sanctum. He opened it and slipped out, deliberately not looking back.


	3. Chapter 3

The next two months weren't easy. Tony wouldn't go so far as to say they were the hardest months of his life, because he wasn't living in a cave, hadn't been kidnapped, wasn't being held prisoner, and wasn't lying abandoned on a cold floor in the middle of Siberia. But they were definitely up there. There was something inherently awkward about waking up in a different world where you had to pretend that you weren't different at all. It helped somewhat this world was very similar to the last one, and that the inclusion of Littles and Caregivers hadn't changed much.

Perhaps most importantly, it was not public knowledge that Tony Stark was a Little. It seemed that Howard hadn't approved of having a Little for a son, and had taken great strides to make sure that information never got out. Everyone believed that Tony was a baseline human who did a lot of work for Little rights. According to JARVIS, the only people who knew the truth were Pepper, Rhodey, Happy, Peter Parker, a few qualified medical personnel, and Coulson - though Coulson didn't really count anymore, seeing as how he was still dead. Now, added to that exclusive list, was Stephen Strange. 

Tony relished it. After having been forced to live as a baby for so long against his will, he _adored_ being able to do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, however he wanted. He wanted to run out at 2am for the pizza in Manhattan? He could do that. He wanted to relax on the couch with a beer? He could do that, though he suffered an awful hangover the next morning and JARVIS had explained that the biology of Littles made it so that they were impacted much harder by alcohol or drugs. He wanted to stay up all night, or for more than one night, and then sleep the day away? He could do that. He could do _anything_. It was _glorious_.

It was also, apparently, worrying. Pepper cornered him one morning about seven weeks after Tony first changed things. She said, "We need to talk."

"Um, about what?" Tony said cautiously. In this world, he and Pepper had never seriously dated. She'd acted as his beard for a while, helping to provide a solid cover as to why Tony never dated, before they mutually agreed to break things up. That gave Tony a convenient cover story about why he wasn't dating that he could ride for a while, and gave Pepper the chance to gracefully move on. 

Putting his feelings about Pepper to rest once and for all had been incredibly hard. He hadn't realized how much he'd been holding onto the hope that, when he got free of Thanos, he'd finally be able to move on with Pepper. Sometimes he thought about the engagement ring he'd once had for her and it hurt so much that he usually broke down and cried. But he didn't have a choice. JARVIS had told him that it was incredibly rare for Littles to have romantic relationships, and practically illegal for Littles as young as Tony to have a sexual relationship. Pepper would be horrified if he ever tried to ask her out seriously, and he couldn't afford to make her truly angry until he'd gotten his bearings in the new world.

"You're being weird," Pepper said bluntly, peering at him over her tablet. "You haven't gone into your headspace in over two months. You know how unhealthy that is for you, Tony."

"I've been busy," Tony said, not meeting her eye. 

"Not that busy. I'll always make time for you to be in your headspace, and I make sure that time is set aside especially for that. But you've worked through three of your free days now. What's going on?"

"Nothing." He kept his gaze on his phone.

"Are you having trouble going down?" she persisted. "I know it can be hard for you to care for yourself. Do you need me to -"

"No!" Tony exclaimed, horrified by the very idea. The last thing he needed was his ex-girlfriend changing his diapers. He was positive that it had already happened, and JARVIS could probably pull up plenty of footage to support that idea, but Tony couldn't abide it. It was one thing to be friends with Pepper. It was another thing entirely to allow her to care for him like that.

Pepper stopped, looking surprised by his vehemence. "Tony, wasn't going on? Please tell me."

"I'm fine, Pep. Really. I've just been busy. Not just with S.I., but with... everything else too." It wasn't exactly a lie. The so-called civil war had happened in this world too. Tony was currently doing everything he could to make sure that Steve Rogers never stepped back on American soil as a free man. One of those things involved finding new members to fill the vacant slots on the Avenger team. So far he had himself, War Machine, Wasp, and Dr. Strange, with Spider-Man providing back-up as necessary. It wasn't enough and Tony knew it, but he was having trouble getting other superheroes to step up. The name of the Avengers was tainted now in a way.

"I know you have a lot going on," Pepper said after a few seconds. "But Tony, working yourself into the ground isn't going to help anyone. You'll end up in the hospital at this rate, and you know how hard it is to hide your status from medical personnel."

"I'm not working myself into the ground. I promise you, I'm fine," Tony said, kindly but firmly. This was not a conversation he wanted to keep having.

Because the truth was, he wasn't doing okay. He was doing horribly. In all his fantasies of the world being back to normal, he'd forgotten just how stressful adult life was. There were so many decisions to make at any given moment. It was a far cry from the time he'd spent with Thanos, which was carefully regimented all in the name of having a good routine. Sometimes it was all Tony could to keep himself from falling into a panic attack, and that's when he could feel: the consuming, almost inescapable urge to lay down on the floor and have a good cry. In those moments, he wanted someone to take care of him with a desperation that was physically painful. It was akin to a withdrawal, except that Tony refused to address it as such.

Pepper didn't look convinced. She just shook her head. "Okay. This is your last appointment of the day. Dr. Strange is here to go over a few things about the Accords. You have the afternoon free after that, so please get some rest.

Tony nodded, thoughts already on the coming meeting. He'd gotten to know Stephen Strange and Hope van Dyne a lot better over the past seven weeks. Turned out that Hope wasn't the frigid bitch that Howard had always made her out to be; she was actually very smart, with a whip-like sense of humor capable of cutting through even the biggest of egos. Strange, on the other hand, was surprisingly invested in helping out with the Accords and joining the Avengers. But then again, Tony supposed that a memory of being turned to dust could do that to you.

They were both good, hard-working people who would do well on the team, and Tony was grateful for their support every damn day. Otherwise, he was pretty sure that Rogers and his crew would've been back in town within a few weeks. He said his goodbye to Pepper and headed upstairs; he knew what changes to the Accords that Strange was looking at, and they all made sense to him. The hard work would lay in drafting an amendment that was worded so precisely that the Council would allow it to slide by without argument

"Good morning, Stephen," Tony said, letting himself into the room and closing the door behind him.

"Tony." Strange stood with a nod. He was dressed in jeans and a button-down shirt today, though the cloak still swung from his shoulders. Tony held his hand out and grinned as the cloak's bottom right corner gave him a high five. He much preferred that over a slap on the ass.

"How are my favorite magic wielders today?" Tony asked.

"Worried, actually," said Strange.

"No need to worried. I've gotten amendments pushed through before," Tony said breezily. "This will be a walk in the park compared to the amendments we're working on for mutants."

"Not about the Accords. About you."

Tony's smile faded. "I'm fine."

"You're not fine. Doctor, remember? I can tell when someone isn't fine."

"I don't want to talk about it," Tony said shortly. He regretted telling Strange as much as he had about Thanos. It had been a moment of weakness, but it haunted him.

"We don't have to. I'm not a therapist," Strange said, and Tony stilled. Memories of Bruce saying those exact words washed over him. 

"Then why are you here?" Tony asked, forcing himself to ignore it. He hadn't seen Bruce around yet. By all accounts, Bruce had left the planet in this world just like the in the old one. He wondered if that meant Bruce was on Asgard with Thor and Loki, or if he'd gone somewhere else. 

"I'm a Caregiver. You're a Little," Strange said.

Tony turned to stare at him. "Please tell me you're joking right now."

"I'm afraid not. I'm perfectly serious. This world is..." Strange blew out his breath in a sigh and sat down hard, suddenly looking immensely weary. "It's been very difficult for me to get used to these... urges. I find myself wanting to care for someone. Needing it, actually. To the point where Wong has actually kicked me out of the Sanctum a few times because he says I'm hovering over him and he doesn't need a second mother."

"So go get yourself a Little. There must be magical users out there with powers," Tony said.

Strange gave him a look. "And what, pretend like I know what I'm doing when I don't? All Caregivers my age have had multiple Littles by this point. This is all new to me. I've done some research into it, but research is nothing compared to hands-on experience."

"And you think I would be capable of giving you that hands-on experience," Tony said, his throat tight.

"I think we would be well-suited, yes. But I'm also..." Strange cleared his throat. "I'm also slightly concerned. About you." He sounded awkward. "The world needs Iron Man. I saw enough futures to know that much. That hasn't changed just because Thanos is no longer a threat. You can't keep going the way you've been going. My research into all of this tells me that it's extremely dangerous."

Tony pursed his lips, narrowing his eyes. "I'm afraid I can't help you. I've been doing just so fine so far on my own." He turned to walk back towards the door.

"You can't ignore it, Tony. I don't know exactly what Thanos did to you, and frankly I don't expect you to tell me. I'm here if you want to tell me, but I doubt that's the case. Either way, I know what it's like to live with trauma that you just want to ignore. As though by ignoring it, you can pretend it didn't happen. That doesn't work. I've been there. This might be a new world, but what happened to you... it still happened."

It still happened. Those words resonated though Tony on a level he couldn't properly express with words. His pulse quickened and he clenched his hands into fists. "Don't you think I know that? I'm the one living with the effects of it every damn day! Every morning when I get up, I have to put a fucking diaper on. And it reminds me - it reminds me -" His words cut off with a shallow gasp, Thanos's smirking face looming in front of his mind. There had never been any kindness or affection in his touch. Only condescension, which was so humiliating Tony still wanted to shrivel up when he thought too hard on it.

He found himself on his knees, struggling to breathe, with the wall against his back. Something warm settled over his shoulders - the cloak, he realized after several seconds - and then Strange sat down on the floor beside him. Mercifully, Strange didn't say a word. He just sat there quietly and let Tony work through his panic attack. Tony clutched at the cloak with shaking hands, trying to force the memories of Thanos away. It helped to have the cloak wrapped tightly around him, and the warmth of another body that he was shocked to realize he trusted sitting beside him.


	4. Chapter 4

“Here, drink this.”

Tony took the offered mug of tea from the coffee table with hands that shook. It was only after he had the mug tucked against his chest that he realized he would much rather have a bottle. He’d always been the sort of person who had an oral fixation, prone to chewing on pens, pencils, or whatever was handy when he was trying to work through a particularly hard problem – which was pretty much an every day, if not multiple times a day, occurrence by this point. 

He would never admit it, but there may have been a dozen pacifiers downstairs in the workshop. It had become a bad habit to pop one into his mouth and suck while listening to loud music and working. Dummy and JARVIS had figured out that Tony was far more likely to drink water if it was in a bottle, so there were half a dozen half-empty bottles down there too. 

It was… comforting. Tony couldn’t describe it better than that. Having something in his mouth meant he didn’t need to talk, which gave his brain the chance to focus on other, frequently more important things. It even helped when he was having a panic attack, because it was a tether to the real world that didn’t overwhelm him. He’d woken up sucking his thumb more mornings than he could count.

But he couldn’t bring himself to ask Strange for one. That was too weird. He brought the mug to his lips and sipped, making a face when he realized that the tea was both strong and sugary. He wasn’t a big fan of tea to begin with, but he usually took it black because that was What Men Did.

Strange caught the look and smirked. “The sugar is to help make you more stable. You’re shaking.”

“I am not,” Tony lied. He huddled further into the blanket draped around his shoulders and drank more of the tea. He couldn’t deny that it made him feel better, though whether it was the sugar or just the fact it was warm, he wasn’t sure.

“Yeah, you are. I’ve dealt with panic attacks before, Tony. I know what people need afterwards.”

Tony mumbled something about doctors under his breath but continued to drink until the mug was empty. He felt slightly less like he was going to fall apart when he handed the mug back to Strange, who took it into the kitchen. Alone, Tony looked blankly around the living room. They’d moved from the meeting room up to his own floor once Tony felt capable of walking. The cloak’s presence around his shoulders had helped; he would never admit it, but he was pretty sure that the cloak had taken a lot of his weight on the walk up. 

Strange came back and set something else on the coffee table: a baby bottle, sized for Littles, full of water. Tony froze as Strange sat down on the couch beside him, holding another mug of tea. Then Strange started sipping from the mug this time, as casually as though this was something they did every day. Tony stared at the bottle for several seconds and then sighed.

“You’re serious.”

“I wouldn’t joke about something like this.”

“This is a terrible idea,” Tony told him. “I meant it when I said that I can’t help you. I have way too much baggage to ever… to do this the way it’s meant to be done.”

“I have no experience with the way it’s meant to be done,” Strange said calmly. 

Tony started to respond and then stopped, suddenly realizing that Strange had a point. Damn him. “You must’ve done research into this.”

“Of course I did. But as you know, research is very different from hands on experience.” Strange balanced the mug on his right knee and ruefully flexed his shaking hands. “From what I’ve learned, this sort of thing requires a great deal of trust on behalf of both participants.”

“Why Stephen Strange, are you trying to tell me that you trust me?” Tony said, aiming for it to be a joke and falling flat by a mile.

“Yes,” came the quick response, which Tony was _so_ not ready for. “You saved the galaxy, Tony, from a fate that many would consider to be worse than death. You saved my life. And in the futures I saw…” He looked off into the distance at something that only he could see. “The world is a better place when you’re in it. I find myself wanting to be a part of that.”

Tony swallowed. His mouth was suddenly incredibly dry. “For the sake of the world?”

Strange blinked and shrugged, and then smiled ruefully. “Before I became Sorcerer Supreme, I had my work as a doctor and little else. I lost that thanks to a car crash. Now I have magic, but still little beyond that. That’s one of the reasons why I’ve been helping out with the Avengers Initiative, trying to expand my horizons and make more friends. It turns out that the world is a lot easier to defend when you have reason to want to defend it.”

Friend. Tony turned the word over in his mind without saying anything. For a long time, that had been a word that made him apprehensive at best and scared at worst. Tony Stark didn’t do anything by half; you were either his best friend or his worst enemy. The amount of people who fell into the first group seemed to be shrinking by the day, whereas the latter group kept growing. He only had to think of Wakanda, and all the people there who absolutely hated him, to know that was a fact.

He didn’t think he would ever forget being in Siberia and having Rogers say that Barnes was his friend, _the_ friend, the friend to be sided with at the expense of all other friends. But so much had happened between now and then that Tony also felt like he had become slightly numb to it all. He would never forgive Rogers, but his knee-jerk reaction to refuse any offers of friendship had dulled.

“That’s fair,” he said after a considerably long pause. “Though there are a lot of people out there who would try to dissuade you from calling me, of all people, a friend.”

“There are people out there who would say the same about me,” Strange said, and Tony couldn’t argue with that. 

“I still don’t know,” he muttered. Pepper was right in that he couldn’t continue on the way he had been. Letting Pepper care for him was an absolute no; Tony would rather hire professionals and force them to sign Non-Disclosure Agreements, though he wasn’t overly fond of that idea either. Even the most ironclad N.D.A. didn’t always convince people to keep their mouths shut.

But he just wasn’t sure about agreeing to something like this. It was true that he trusted Strange more than he trusted a hell of a lot of people, but this… Tony would be completely vulnerable in his headspace. JARVIS would be there to watch, of course, which was the only reason Tony hadn’t said a flat no. The thought of being that vulnerable again was hard to swallow.

Not to mention, he was positive it would bring up more than one bad memory. God, he’d literally just suffered through a panic attack because Strange had reminded him that Thanos had still happened. He wasn’t sure if he was ready to deal with all of that trauma yet. But at the same time, he didn’t know if he had a choice. His physiology and emotional and mental health would demand he deal with it to some extent, probably sooner rather than later. Otherwise, all research indicated that Tony would be in for a hell of a breakdown. No one needed to see that.

Strange shook his head and finished his tea. “Keep in mind, I’m not asking you to jump into this head first. I have no experience with Littles. Based on my test results, I’m best matched with a Little who is quite young. A baby, in fact.” He shook his head in amazement. “I have no experience with babies whatsoever. If you were to fall into your headspace right now, I wouldn’t have two clues what to do. I would _much_ prefer if we took it slow. Glacial, if you will.”

Tony half-smiled at that, still eyeing the bottle on the coffee table. “I’m curious to know how you knew that we would be a match age-wise.”

“I can see auras,” Strange said unexpectedly. “Not all the time, but I know the spell. I cast it out of curiosity several weeks ago and realized that Littles, Caregivers and baseline humans have different auras. Yours is pale blue, indicative of a very young Little headspace.” He turned his head to look at Tony. “I apologize for prying into information you didn’t want anyone to know. I saw you before I realized what the change meant.”

“It’s fine,” Tony said, though it kind of wasn’t. At the very least, he made a mental note to figure out later if there was a way to mask that. He didn’t like the thought of any magic user in the world being able to look at his aura and figure out the truth.

“Even my own aura has changed. It used to be grey. Now it’s purple. I haven’t quite figured out if there’s more to the change than just my status as a Caregiver,” Strange added. “It’s something I’ve been intending to study.”

“Was it… weird?” Tony found himself asking. “Being a Caregiver suddenly?”

Strange snorted at that. “You have no idea _how_ weird. I’ve never been a man who cared much for other people, which I realize sounds odd when you consider what my previous profession was. Even when I was a doctor, the biggest, and only, complaint about me was my lack of a bedside manner. I often said that being a doctor would’ve been much better had I not had to deal with patients.” 

He leaned forward, setting the empty mug on the table and picking up the bottle. “So it was… overwhelming to suddenly have these urges to care for other people, something I’ve never really experienced before. And it was baffling, almost frightening, to know that they would not go away until I fulfilled them. It’s not something I have the ability to change, either. It’s written into my basic D.N.A. and pretty much every legitimate scientist out there agrees that you can’t remove or modify those genes. You can ignore the urges, but most people eventually end up having some sort of breakdown.”

“Just like Littles,” Tony said quietly, and Strange nodded.

“Yes, I found that out as well. I suppose people who don’t want to be Caregivers, and who have grown up with these urges, have found ways to deal with them. For me, obviously, I didn’t have that luxury. It’s like several years of pent-up desire to care for someone have hit me all at once.”

“You sound so disgusted,” Tony said, amused.

“I don’t mean to. It’s not as bad as I might have otherwise believed. Small things do help, but I’ve annoyed Wong to the point where he doesn’t want to be in the same room as me until I find a Little.” And Strange set the bottle down in Tony’s lap. “I guess I’m just… I’m _frustrated_ with not having had a choice in the matter. But I suppose I shouldn’t be saying anything that to you, of all people.”

Tony picked up the bottle. It was plastic, like all his bottles. “Actually, that’s comforting to hear,” he admitted, relaxing slightly. “Everyone in this world is just okay with it, because to them it’s _always_ been this way. Well, except for Vision, maybe. I haven’t heard from him in a long time. Either way, it’s just… it’s _normal_ to them. I hate that.”

He slipped the nipple of the bottle into his mouth, in lieu of having to say anything else. It was too hard to say that he still felt like a stranger in this world, and that he hadn’t fully wrapped his mind around Rhodey or Pepper yet: they were his dearest friends, but they were different at the same time. That this change may have saved him, but he’d also lost a lot at the same time. Having someone else who understood helped a lot, even if he couldn’t give voice to that just yet.

He sucked down some water and noticed, out of the corner of his eye, some of the tension running out of Strange. Apparently he hadn’t been lying when he’d said small things, such as getting Tony a bottle, helped. Tony thought that maybe he could deal with that. Small things. Maybe it would be enough to satisfy this frustrating urge to have someone care for him in return.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed movement and turned his head just in time to see the cloak fly out of his bedroom. Tony watched in bafflement as the cloak flew straight over to him and deposited a teddy bear into his lap. He recognized the teddy bear, of course. It was one that had been in the crib when he woke up that fateful day. Obviously well loved, the bear’s dark brown fur may well have been the softest thing Tony had ever touched. 

“You’ll get used to that. The Cloak of Levitation likes to meddle,” Strange said, giving the cloak a look. “Usually where it’s not welcome.”

The cloak flapped at Strange and flew over to a corner of the room, obviously sulking.

“Um, it’s fine. I don’t really – stuffed animals were never – I don’t even know if Thanos understood the concept,” Tony said, laying a hand on the bear’s belly and gently trailing his fingers through the fur. It was a good reminder, at least, that he was not with Thanos, and never would be again.

The cloak fluttered as though in a breeze, clapping its ends. Tony smiled in spite of himself and curled an arm around the bear. He didn’t think he could handle being in his headspace just yet, not without suffering another panic attack of epic proportions. But this – sitting on the couch beside Strange, a bottle in one hand and a bear in the other, knowing that Strange and the cloak were both watching out for him – wasn’t too bad. He felt… almost safe. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt that way.

Strange was quiet for a moment, turning Tony’s statement over in his mind, before he cleared his throat. “Should I turn on the television?”

“Sure,” Tony whispered, grateful that Strange hadn’t pressed. Rogers would have. He pushed that thought from his brain to be dissected for another day, and slid the nipple of the bottle back into his mouth.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://tsuki-chibi.tumblr.com/).


End file.
